Australia Network Study English Series 1 Episode 16 "DVT"

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Hello, and welcome again to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I’m Margot Politis. If you’ve been on a flight recently, you will have heard about the danger of sitting still for a long time in an aeroplane, apart from the danger of boredom that is! The danger is from a condition called ‘deep vein thrombosis’, or ‘DVT’. Today on Study English we’ll listen to a doctor talk about DVT, then we’re going to look at how to talk about things that might happen in the future.

— Deep vein thrombosis is where a clot forms in the calf veins and occasionally in the veins of the leg, sometimes in the veins of the pelvis, and this is a great concern because the clot may dislodge, travelling with the flow of blood into the right side of the heart and from there into the lung. When we’re travelling on long haul flights, several things happen. First of all, we’re stationery. We’re not moving our legs, so there’s no physiological compression of the calf muscles. Blood tends to sit in the veins and may clot. Number two, the environment is dry. We dehydrate, we may drink some alcohol. We dehydrate even further. Alcohol’s a diuretic agent, and it results in us actually drying out, and that makes the blood a little bit thicker and stickier, and these factors lead to clotting. Sometimes, in perhaps particularly the economy section of an aeroplane, we may be a little bit cramped and our leg may be slightly compressed on the seat. This could further prevent blood flow back to the heart and trap blood in the leg, where clotting may occur. —

Dr Crantock was talking about things that that ‘could’ happen, ‘may’ happen, or ‘perhaps’ will happen in the future. ‘Perhaps’ is an adverb. It is a word like maybe or possibly. It gives a statement the sense that the speaker is not sure if the thing will happen. ‘Perhaps I will’ means the same as ‘possibly I will’, or ‘maybe I will’. ‘May’ and ‘could’ are modal verbs. ‘May’ has a number of meanings. The most common use is when you are asking ‘permission’. ‘May I come in? Yes you may.’ But the other use of ‘may’ is to talk about possibilities in the future. ‘I may come in tomorrow’ means in the future, I will possibly come in, but it’s not definite. ‘Could’ has a number of meanings too. The first is ‘ability’. ‘When I was little I could swim’ means when I was young, I was able to swim. But ‘could’ is also used to express future possibilities. ‘It could rain tomorrow’. It’s not definite, but it might rain. Dr Crantok is talking about what can happen sometimes on flights, but it won’t definitely happen. Listen again.

— Sometimes, in perhaps particularly the economy section of the aeroplane, we may be a little bit cramped and our leg may be slightly compressed on the seat. This could further prevent blood flow back to the heart and trap blood in the leg, where clotting could occur. —

So for speculating, or thinking about what will happen in the future, we can use adverbials like ‘possibly’ or ‘perhaps’; we can use modal verbs like ‘may’ and ‘could’; and we can use phrases like ‘I guess’, ‘I imagine’, ‘I suspect’. So in the clip he says ‘blood clotting could occur’. We can also say:‘Blood clotting may occur.’ ‘Blood clotting will perhaps occur.’ ‘Blood clotting will possibly occur.’ ‘I suspect blood clotting will occur.’